THOMAS) IDENTITY OF SYSTEMS AND CHARACTERS 809 
diversity in all their calendars; their dates are all correlative, and in 
most of the records parallel each other.” Of course there are spo- 
radic variations and imperfect glyphs which often render determina- 
tion by simple inspection uncertain, but it is generally aided by the 
connecting numeral series. 
The change of day symbols from the typical form to face characters 
is found in the codices as well as in the inscriptions, as is shown by an 
examination of the Troano codex, where it is of frequent occurrence. 
The occasional variations of the symbols for the days Chicchan, Cimi, 
and Ix, in the latter codex, are so radical that identity is ascertained 
only by means of the positions they occupy in series. It is upon this 
uniformity Mr Goodman chiefly bases his theory of an archaic calen- 
dar. Following the quotation given in the preceding paragraph he 
says (pp. 145-146): 
From this is deducible the important fact that—whether a single empire, a federa- 
tion, or separate nations—they were a homogeneous people, constituting the grandest 
natiye civilization in the Western Hemisphere of which there is any record. Yet 
when the Spaniards arrived upon this theater of prehistoric American grandeur, 
there was not only no powerful nation extant but no tradition or memory of former 
national greatness. The very sites of the ancient capitals were unmentioned, name- 
less, unknown. This obliviousness could not result from the passage of a few score or 
a few hundred years. It could only come in the wake of a period that had outlasted 
the patience and retentiveness of even aboriginal minds. Next, Dr Otto Stoll, the 
distinguished comparative linguist, who has made a special study of the Maya dia- 
lects, states that the Cakchiquel language, one of the most nearly affined to that of 
the Tzentals, who at present occupy the central seat of the extinct empire, is yet 
different enough to require a period of at least two thousand years to account for the 
divarication. This points toa remote date of separation, though indefinite. Thirdly, 
we find in the Yucatec chronicles a definite indication singularly in keeping with 
Dr Stoll’s estimate. All the Xiu chronicles begin with a record of the migration of 
their ancestors, in two great bodies, about two hundred and forty years apart, from 
some region to the westward. 
From long and careful study of the annals I haye come to the conclusion that 
these migrations took place respectively about 353 and 113 years before the beginning 
of ourera. That this migration could have come from the Archaic nation only is 
proved by the identity of the graphic system of the Yucatees with that of Palenque, 
Copan, Quirigua, and other cities of the central region—a system found nowhere to 
the north, south, or west of it. Even to this day the Yucatec language is more closely 
allied to that of the Tzentals and Zotzils of that same region than to any of the other 
numerous Maya dialects. That the Yucatec calendar and chronological system differ 
in several respects from those of the Archaic cities is not a final or even grave objec- 
tion to this theory, but only what under the circumstances might be expected. The 
Xius found the Cocoms and Itzas, older offshoots of the Maya race, already in pos- 
session of Yucatan, and appear always to have acted a subordinate part to them in 
subsequent history. It is not unlikely, therefore, that they changed their methods 
of computing time so as to conform to those of their superiors; or the change may 
have been made for some reason not evident to us; but that they did change their 
methods there can be no doubt, and that, too, shortly after their contact with the 
other nations. Two of their chronicles distinctly state that at a time equivalent to 
about the 257th year of our era ‘‘ Pop was put in order.’’ The statement can refer 
